Hybrid coconut-pineapple creation calls for Australian ‘festivities’
A pina-colada type fruit has been developed by Queensland researchers in a world-first infusion of pineapple and coconut.
The Sunshine Coast Department of Agriculture has been developing the “AusFestival pineapple” for over ten years, and believes it has finally created a pineapple with a coconut taste.
The new hybrid fruit is in its final stages of production, but will be another two years before it is commercially available.
Senior horticulturalist Garth Senewski said that it was not the researchers intention to create a pineapple with coconut flavour, but to simply create one that was “sweet, aromatic and had low acidity.”
The “AusFestival pineapple” will join an interesting list of other hybrid fruits including a “papple,” a cross between a pear and an apple, launched by UK scientists in May 2012.
